European Commission Sued By European Parliament Member Because Of ACTA Secrecy

from the political-lawsuits dept

It's no secret that the European Parliament and European Commission have been at odds over ACTA, and specifically over the secrecy around ACTA. However, it's now come out that a member of the European Parliament is actually suing the European Commission over the issue, though details are scarce. A lawsuit seems like a pretty extreme response, but it would be nice to see the details.

Lawsuit vs ACTA

A lawsuit seems like a pretty extreme response, but it would be nice to see the details.

I think ACTA is the pretty extreme response. The lawsuit compared to ACTA seems pretty level headed to me. There is no reason for the secrecy.

It is sad that those who make laws and agreements do not listen to the public. Copyright is on the decline and the only people who support it whole-heartedly as it is are those who benefit from the government granted monopolies. The public sees it as something left over from a long time ago, and now used by the rich to suppress the natural evolution of technology and the human nature of sharing.

Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

copyright / patent / trademark isn't on the decline, but it is certainly under attack by a generation who thinks they should get everything for nothing or next to nothing. There is an incredible lack of respect for the work of others, a lack of respect for the law, and really a lack of respect for each other in all of this.

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The fact that creators can still make money without copyright/patent/trademark shows that at least enough people still respect their work to make it profitable for them to continue to create. Now as for the middle men...so sorry!

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Or, perhaps it's a generation that feels what files they copy is none of the government's business (it's not). A generation that disrespects the entitlement mentality of media creators who are unable and unwilling to adapt to new technology (which said generation understands intuitively). A generation that simply disagrees with your outmoded ideals.

"Dang kids, get off ma lawn!"

Is it their fault that they've moved on? Or is it your fault that you've fallen behind?

Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

You can copy all the files you like - but what is in them is the government's and society's business if you are infringing on the rights of others.

It isn't about "dang kids get off ma lawn", it's about respect. Our laws work on it. Without respect, everyone will just move into your house, use your car without permission, and eat everything in your fridge. Oh yeah, they will shit on your sofa and kill your dog. If we aren't going to have respect for some rights, why have them for any others?

Sort of like the graffiti "artists", who I suspect would be very upset if people tagged their car, tagged their house, tagged their bed, and so on. But they have no issues scrawling all over everyone else's property. It may or may not be art, but most of it is done without respect for others.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

I'd like to see how your reasoning fits in with the reality that artists are more successful, and that people who have had their works "stolen" see an increase in not only sales, but profits, and recognition.

And that people are willing to pay to the artists themselves rather than allow big media companies to gouge and rob from the creators.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Without respect, everyone will just move into your house, use your car without permission, and eat everything in your fridge. Oh yeah, they will shit on your sofa and kill your dog.

If we aren't going to have respect for some rights, why have them for any others?

Who decides which rights and laws you should respect? The government? The mega-corporations of the entertainment industry? Or you as an individual, and collectively as a society?

The reason why (most) people don't do the things you list above is not because of some vague notion of "respect". It's because they recognise implicitly that a society where people did such things is not a society that they would want to live in.

The same is not true at all when it comes to sharing and copying things. In fact the norm is for the exact opposite to be true. How many times have you borrowed a lawnmower or an electric drill or something from a friend or neighbour? If your neighbour happened to own an Acme Lawnmower Copying Machine - would it be wrong if he said "I can't lend you my lawnmower today, but why don't I run you up a copy?"

Sure, the lawnmower manufacturer might be put out by such a development. However if they're unwilling or unable to respond to the competition represented by Acme's fictional innovation, then that's *their* problem.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Well, at least some of what you said is true. The root of the problem is indeed a lack of respect for the existing law. The problem is that you simply can't legislate morals. If people don't respect an existing law, new laws aren't going to make them do so.

There are ultimately three ways to rule:
1. Make laws that are in tune with cultural morals, and people will obey such laws because they respect them.
2. Deception: misrepresent the laws such that people follow the laws because they think they agree with them even though they don't.
3. Brute force: you make the punishments so brutal that people obey laws they don't respect out of simple fear.

The trend recently has been to attempt to rule by the latter two methods, but such methods work for a limited time at best. People won't remain ignorant forever (and the internet has made information much more available than before), and unless you're willing to give up all pretense of morals on the part of the government you won't be able to demonstrate the brutality necessary to rule by fear.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

To add a bit of detail that I should have put in the original post: copyright is, at best, an approximation of popular morality. This approximation fits some cases better than others. In the best case (where copyright law most closely resembles popular morals), the morals of typically 50-85% of the population (varies by region) agree with copyright law in that case. However, virtually nobody agrees with copyright law in the absolute; that is, for almost every single person there exists some case where copyright law contradicts what they believe is right, and they will not hesitate to violate the law if they see a benefit to doing so.

Attempts to equate copyright law with morality exactly are, at best, and attempt to rule by deception. At worst, it may backfire and cause people to harmonize their morals with copyright law by rejecting both.

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The fact that the price may go down, doesn't mean it doesn't have worth, or that you can't make money with free. There are a plethora of business models to choose from to make money while also harnessing the power of free.

And, it's the general lack of respect towards the customers over the past few decades, that fires most of these actions. CD prices were promised to go down, instead they went up. Customers were continuously given the shaft, with high prices, DRM, region locking, inferior filler content, unwillingness to evolve with the market and other such things.
Suddenly the legitimate customers were thieves: "You wouldn't steal a car". Insult on insult on insult. And you wonder why people are fighting back?

Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Customers were continuously given the shaft, with high prices, DRM, region locking, inferior filler content, unwillingness to evolve with the market and other such things.

Yet, this inferior product, this pile of filler, this non-evolved product is exactly what people are pirating. It is the stupidity of the situation. If the product is bad, why are you pirating it? The answer is simple, because you really like and really want the product.

The only thing that has evolved is a culture that thinks it's okay to take anything they want, without charge and without concern. They get uppity and rude when called out on it.

Stop pirating hollywood, otherwise you look like a hypocrite calling out the big companies and then working so hard to steal their product.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Yet, this inferior product, this pile of filler, this non-evolved product is exactly what people are pirating. It is the stupidity of the situation. If the product is bad, why are you pirating it? The answer is simple, because you really like and really want the product.

I offended Sir. I do not consume those things.

I use Jamendo for my music and since the license there gives me the right to distribute I do so, where did I not respect something?

Also for movies I use Archive.org, Youtube, VODO, Mininova all legal options, for books I go to Librivox, where there are something illegal about it?

The truth Sir is that your kind repulses me, and I couldn't bare to consume that which reminds me of all the evil in the world.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Reasons people pirate:

A) Because of the filler junk on an album. It is impossible to know which tracks are good ahead of time. I never even decide if I like a track until after I have heard it all the way through a few times.
B) DRM - Don't want that shit so download instead and you get it without computer crippling software.
C) You like it, just not that much. If the price is too high, people won't buy. Pretty simple. However, they still want it. Try dropping the price over time and you will get more people to buy at each price level.
D) They wouldn't have bought it anyways. This alone could have several sub categories. Maybe they are a poor person who doesn't have money. Maybe they like it enough to listen to once in a rare while, but overall they don't like that that darn much. Maybe they really are just somebody who wants stuff for free. However, that last category would be an extremely small percentage of people.
E) Lack of funds. This could be because they are poor. In many cases, even when people aren't, there is only so much they are willing to spend on entertainment. The avenues that use up that entertainment amount are only increasing. As the prices for things go up, the number of items purchased will go down.

As an aside, can you point to me any proof at all that copyright infringement on a personal downloader level does any harm at all? I have yet to see any solid proof. All of the studies done by the industry (or rather paid for by the industry) show harm, but it is very easy to poke holes in their entire study all around. Not to mention that half of their researchers turn around and say that the conclusions they draw from the research isn't supported by the research. All of the non-industry funded research shows that those who pirate are actually the biggest purchasers. Probably because they are better informed and know better what they like.
So please, show actual harm in piracy before I will take your "piracy is harmful" stance as anything more than bullshit meant to restrict the public from what natural progression and natural human nature allows.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

That is the biggest lie, almost everything made is available in a saleable form. It might not be today (because the movie isn't released yet on DVD or the album is not yet released), but those problems have more to do with your self-entitlement issues, that think you should be able to have everything right now, no matter what other issues it causes.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

90% of legit online methods of getting Any media (except games) from the US throws up a nice big page saying 'this content is not available in your region'.

compleatly defeating the point in using the Internet in the first place, and leaving over half the english speaking world going 'o..k...' and pirating or giving up... either way, not buying, because, you know, it's not actually available. usually for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with anything other than price gouging.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The times I clicked on a Youtube link only to get the same message "not available in your country" is quite numerous as well.
Recently even on a video in the 'BBC Worldwide' channel. Worldwide! And yet not available in my country (The Netherlands).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Try buying me a copy of the Disney movie Song of the South... Or the old Tron movie. Where can I get that one?

Or many of the other archived artists, a lot of records are crumbling to dust, while there still is a market for them online. It's not about the latest and greatest stuff, it's more about the back-catalog. The older stuff, that's not available anywhere, anymore.

Want it now, want to pay for it, but can't pay for it because it's not available anywhere anymore. That kind of stuff.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

That is the biggest lie, almost everything made is available in a saleable form. It might not be today (because the movie isn't released yet on DVD or the album is not yet released), but those problems have more to do with your self-entitlement issues, that think you should be able to have everything right now, no matter what other issues it causes.

Really? Please point me to a the place where I can legally purchase ebook versions of Harry Potter or Robert Ludlum. Oh, and Dr Who, and the original versions of WKRP (not the shitty edits), or how about Gerhard Husch's fabulous recordings of the Schubert song cycles. Those are just off the top of my head, if I actually spent another 10 minutes thinking I could come up with several hundred examples. The only things made available are those things your corporate overlords deem worthy of consumption by us mere mortals. Until I can actually find legal versions of the things I want, I will find alternative ones if they're available.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The only thing that has evolved is a culture that thinks it's okay to take anything they want, without charge and without concern.

I'm curious. The number of times I've seen you tout this argument is phenomenal. With the exception of a handful of comments from people on the other side of the fence and about as far outside a 2SD distribution as you are I've yet to see anyone even suggest that's a good idea. My question then is do you genuinely believe that is how society functions? Or is this just a lawyer position to paint the opposition blacker than black in order to make the "solution" look acceptable?

If the former I can only assume you don't have children because the brute force legislation you advocate to fix the hypothetical problem will have pretty much the same effect as "Don't you dare go anywhere near that pond over there" - i.e. the fastest possible route to a wet child.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Yet, this inferior product, this pile of filler, this non-evolved product is exactly what people are pirating. It is the stupidity of the situation. If the product is bad, why are you pirating it? The answer is simple, because you really like and really want the product.

Pirated material doesn't cost more than the bandwidth needed to download it. Pirated material doesn't have DRM. Pirated material isn't region locked. Pirated material doesn't have unskippable nasty warnings and promos. Pirated material is freely editable so you can lose the filler and remix it if you wish.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The only thing that's coming out of the big labels is the idea that us lowly consumers are just walking wallets that they can pick from.

I tend to remain calm, not get uppity or rude. It's usually the copyright apologists that go ahead and start insulting us. They will call us hypocrite thieves, whereas the hypocrites are usually on the opposite end, where we have seen many examples of people defending copyright on one occasion only to be caught red handed infringing on it on the next occasion.

There is nothing hypocritical about my position,

I have paid for content on many different occasions, usually directly to the artist, and when I really enjoy the content.
For one thing, I'm a paying member to this site, I'm not pirating his content, by reading it for free.
I'm a paying listener of a number of podcasts producers, stuff they put out for free, and yet I pay them.

I've bought movies after I watched it for free first. (Most notably the most recent Terry Pratchett movie Going Postal, after that I bought both Going Postal AND The Colour of Magic, so 2 sales for 1 download)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

"Yet, this inferior product, this pile of filler, this non-evolved product is exactly what people are pirating."

That's quite obviously false. People are pirating (as in not paying a high price for) a non-DRMed, non-region-locked version of the content. Assuming people are indeed pirating the filler along with the good (looking at buying habits on iTunes, there's no guarantee of that), that's explained in the following.

"If the product is bad, why are you pirating it? The answer is simple, because you really like and really want the product."

True, to an extent. That people pirate something means that there is at least SOME demand for the thing. But one of the basics of the basics of economic theory is that demand and price are tied. As price increases, demand decreases; thus free is the point at which demand is maximum, and somebody wanting something enough to take it for free is very, very different than saying that they want it enough to pay for it. The IFPI supposes that 90% of people who pirate do not want the thing enough to pay for it if they could not pirate it; some studies by commercial publishers even place the number at greater than 99%.

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

I agree. All the generation X people who worked to ship jobs to China and India, countries with poor IP protection laws, should be dragged out of their BMWs and and given a public smiting. What a fucked up generation of people.

Should have left the jobs in their original country, and passed laws just for their country (complete with debate) rather than this worldwide secret treaty shit.

Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

As opposed to the people who refused to work for a reasonable wage, and instead spent their time at home pirating everything they could get their hands on, scream "more more more" in a fit of entitlement?

Come off it. When it stops costing $30 an hour to have someone build irons, you might get them made in the US again. Otherwise, they are going offshore, along with all the other jobs. You know, to the countries with no IP laws and a labor force willing to work for less money than it costs to buy that BMW.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Or the contentpushers like the RIAA labels who seem to think they are entitled to our money at every turn.
You want the Beatles on record, sure go ahead, but don't make tapes, that's illegal, you'd better buy the tapes as well for in the car!
Oh you want them on cd now, better buy them again!
Oh you want them in digital form? Better wait a gazillion years while we work out who owns what rights and who wants to share a bit of the pie, and then you can buy them again, because downloading them for free is a crime!

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

It looks like others have addressed just about everything I would say.

Artists these days are doing better than before. What most people don't like is giving money to an organization that screws over artists (RIAA for music). There are plenty of artists that if I could directly donate money to, I would because I love their music. However, I refuse to buy their CD (thank you http://www.riaaradar.com/ ) because I know they won't see a penny of it. Their tiny little share will just go to 'recouping' the advance, which is impossible with the RIAA's 1940's method of accounting.

No sir. Plenty of people these days respect the artists, and plenty of artists are doing just fine sans copyright. As another user said, respect is earned, not forced with bullshit laws paid for by mega corps.

Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The public sees it as something left over from a long time ago, and now used by the rich to suppress the natural evolution of technology and the human nature of sharing.

Hmm sadly I suspect that the (getting smaller) majority of the public currently don't really think about it much at all having not necessarily moved much further technologically that the content companies themselves and that if they are aware of it at all it's an annoying inconvenience that might stop them buying but if so they'll just do without.

On the up-side as technology becomes ever more user-accessible more and more people will run smack into the "hang on a minute, why would it stop me doing that? I bought it didn't I?" phenomenon. We have after all reached the point where a tech illiterate 70-year old can rip a bunch of CDs and create 1 big MP3 CD out of it with nothing more than a 5 minute tutorial and then go have a game of computer golf. It's not long from there until Mr and Mrs J Q Public start saying things like "But that 'free' electronic version of Wolverine on the Blueray disc looks crap on the mediabox on the big telly.. and we can't get it in the car for the kids..and it only goes on 1 iPhone... Hang on a minute! Look at this 'Free 1 click solution for moving your Blueray disc to your mediabox' that's the very fellow for me".

At the other end too as the laws get rolled back ever further into what people have always done anyway, even people who have no interest in the "latest advances" get affected and narked about it. "What's this letter? It says I have to go 'online' and register my vinyl record collection and pay for GPS tags for them all in case I loan them to someone. B*gger that for a game of soldiers" (Disclaimer: Slightly exaggerated example for purposes of illustration.)

Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

Exactly. And the restrictions they wish to place on things are only going to help speed up their own demise if they do not adapt to what technology has allowed for over 10 years now.
The longer the corps resist, the more people learn about this law thing called copyright that is used to restrict them from what they would naturally want to do.
It is almost like the RIAA and others are trying to rally people to our side of the cause.

Re: Re: Re: Lawsuit vs ACTA

The longer the corps resist, the more people learn about this law thing called copyright that is used to restrict them from what they would naturally want to do.

Yes, the bit I didn't say is that, while I've no doubt one of the resident AC's would happily yell about how Mr and Mrs JPQ in my example are law breakers and "when we get the message out we're not fooling they'll all stop", it doesn't actually stand up to reality. Ironically one of the reasons for that is the content companies' own arguments - having spent ages convincing the the public that "IP = real property", whether they are convinced of the argument or not it prompts the public to think "Well I bought it, it's mine I can use it how I like"